Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) met with Paul Grove, the senior Republican aide on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee for foreign operations to stress the fact that insurrections in Burma, which have taken place for over six decades now, is intentionally created by the ruling military junta. They constitute one of its ways to keep and expand its power, according to the party’s spokesperson, Sai Leik.

“We explained to him [Mr Grove] about Burma’s problems and asked him to help us,” Sai Leik said. 

In its meeting on 11 January, SNLD explained to Senator Grove that the reason Burma’s problem cannot be solved is not due to problems between Burmese people and ethnic nationalities, as the ruling junta wants the international community to believe.

“The reason is it [the military junta] doesn’t want to hand over its power to a people-elected government. It then finds ways to make people unhappy with them [the military junta] until the people could not bear it and resisted,” said Sai Leik. “This is why insurrections have not ended yet.”

Without the uprisings, the junta would not have a proper reason to show the international community why it keeps controlling the country. For instance, it claims that ethnic areas have no peace and stability even though the junta contributes to this lack of peace and stability.

“They are taking advantage of the situation to control the country. In order to end the instability, there must be a tripartite dialogue,” a SNLD secretary told Mr Grove.

To make the tripartite dialogue a reality, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and National League for Democracy (NLD) must propagate the principles of democracy and federalism among the people, which the non-Burma ethnic parties will have to propagate each among its own people. Both must then propagate them among the military until its lower ranks and officers push the top brass to open dialogue with the democratic and ethnic movements, he said.